<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Festival by reconditarmonia</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23280757">Festival</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/reconditarmonia/pseuds/reconditarmonia'>reconditarmonia</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood &amp; Manga</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Genocide, Holidays, Ishvalan Culture, Memory</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 09:49:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,202</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23280757</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/reconditarmonia/pseuds/reconditarmonia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He's walked it in his mind, trying to remember every house and shop that people left to join them in the procession to the house of prayer, to fix every face in his memory as though this way, they can live.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Worldbuilding Exchange 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Festival</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calantian/gifts">Calantian</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The procession would start at the edge of the village. Or, in most of the towns and villages, this was true. By him, they would go up onto the cliffs that overlooked the village, and march singing down the paths that, the day before, sisters and brothers who were not monks had swept clean of rubble and sprinkled with water to keep down the dust, lest it spoil their festival clothes. From the foot of the path, there was still some open land to cross before they would reach the first houses at the edge of the village, and he remembers how a monk from another town, who was visiting to study with his master at the time this festival came around, was surprised when, walking to the start of the procession not long after dawn, they passed the last house and kept going. In his village they had always done it this way; to come down like the rain from the mountains, which God sends to bless the earth, was an ages-old tradition even in his master’s master’s time.</p><p>He’s walked it in his mind, trying to remember every house and shop that people left to join them in the procession to the house of prayer, to fix every face in his memory as though this way, they can live. Here on their left was the dyer’s, with bright skeins of red and blue wool hung out front, and the dyer coming down from her room above the shop to add her deep, tuneless voice to the chorus; on the right, the businesses that imported from Xing and from Aerugo. They couldn’t see the baker’s from the street that the procession would take, but he remembers that they’d pass close enough to smell the bread that he’d bake especially for this festival, in long thin loaves shaped like the sage’s staff. Turn a corner, and here was the building where the stonemasons met, opposite the new school, where the children would be lined up ready to join the march; on the next street the house of his friend, another monk, and his friend’s neighbor who had the village’s lone radio. </p><p>There was a special children’s prayer that they would say as they went up the steps into the house of prayer on the day of this festival, another thing particular, as he understands, to their part of Kanda. Even before, it had been years since he’d spoken or heard it; since devoting himself to God, he was always elsewhere in the procession, and teaching the prayer to them had never been one of his duties. Now, no matter how he racks his brain, closes his eyes and tries to step into the memory of being a young boy awed in the dwelling-place and presence of God, stretches into the past as though he could turn away from his memories of performing other parts of the holy service and walk to the entrance of the house of prayer to hear the children come in -- he cannot remember. He snatches at fragmentary images, at the words and sounds that might have made it up, but he still can’t call the prayer to mind.</p><p>“I remember celebrating it once,” says the girl, startling him from his thoughts. “Before the war, when we lived in West City.” She falls silent, and for a few moments, the two of them sweep the street of the still-rebuilding town together without speaking, preparing for the first celebration of the festival in their regained holy land.</p><p>“What was it like?” he makes himself ask.</p><p>Once given permission, the words tumble out of her. “We lived near the house of prayer, my family, so we more or less did the whole circuit of the neighborhood. My father -- he picked me up and sat me on his shoulders so I didn’t have to walk the whole way.” She lets out a breath that’s almost a laugh. “I had to wear my nice dress -- well, I loved it, I always wanted to wear it more than a few times a year, an Amestrian-style one but with a stripe on the bottom, you know. I just remember sitting on my father’s shoulders -- there must have been Amestrians around too, but I just remember being up there, seeing all of us in the streets.” She sings a little of one of the hymns, about the teachings of the sage and his favor in God’s sight, and after a moment, he sings it along with her -- hesitantly, as if the words and the music will fly off into the sky and be lost forever. He hasn’t sung or heard it since what feels like a whole lifetime ago, but even so, every little clash of the tune as she knows it and as he knows it sends a tiny shock through him.</p><p>There is only one monk here at present, an old woman who knows that the book is closed forever on that part of his life, and he has acquiesced to the request that she nevertheless made of him: that he go with her tomorrow morning out into the desert, beyond the buildings still in ruin on the other side of the town from the military tents, to begin the procession. He already knows that they will find most of their brothers and sisters at the edge of the town, ready, unable to sit alone in wait, and their children too, most of them born in Amestris or fled too young to remember Ishval. Next year, perhaps, he will be among them as they leave their homes to join the march; tomorrow, the festival; right now in this moment, there is only the weight of emptiness, yawning and heavy and blank.</p><p>“And then dinner with my family, my cousins who lived on the other side of the city,” the girl continues. “Even after the war started, when we didn’t celebrate in the streets anymore, before...” She doesn’t need to finish the sentence; he understands, by now, what happened to Ishvalans in Amestris, too. “My grandmother came from here. This town. She cooked things that they’d make for the festival when she was growing up, and I never asked her how. Eggplant, sesame cakes, special bread. I never learned how to make it.” Her hands tremble on the broom, and there’s an edge of anger in her voice now, but it’s an anger he knows well, anger at everything they’ve lost.</p><p>“You can’t take it all on you,” he surprises himself saying, hearing his words as though they’re coming from someone else. “None of us can rebuild everything with only our two hands.” He won’t promise her that there will be someone who can teach her exactly how it was done here, any more than he can promise himself that someone, somewhere will remember the prayer. Still, silently in his heart, he thanks God for putting these words on his tongue. Tomorrow, when he turns back in the desert to face the town he’s helped rebuild, and eats the festive meal with his sisters and brothers in the Ishval they’ve begun to revive, the work will not be complete, but they can celebrate and rest.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>